RE: stress testing

John is partially correct. SAR, in concert with VMSTAT / IOSTAT, will
provide you with a wealth of information. However, something is missing
from the equation here. LoadRunner will generate scattered statistics on
overall performance of an application (sorry: biased because Compuware has
a better tool), but misses the mark on what other things could affect
overall application performance. For example, are you doing to perform a
"virgin" load test where no one is on the network and nothing but this
application is running on the client? What about other traffic that would
affect overall performance throughout your enterprise network? What about
other applications/activities running on the client machines performing the
load test. Only then will you have an effective measurement of application
performance in the real world.

If you truly have to use LoadRunner, get some software that can measure
Network Performance as it relates to the load test and as it relates to
general network traffic. The load test should account for other activity
being performed such as email, backups, file transfers, reading of
documents, etc. Otherwise, your numbers will be skewed.

Sar is a better tool than vmstat/iostat as it collects a broad range of
information. Specifically, sar -q should show up CPU queueing and swapping,
and sar -v will show up file/process table overflow issues that may occur
during stress testing. IMHO, sar is quite underutilized.... ( had a paper on
this last IOUG, but couldn't go and present it :(

John Kanagaraj
DB Soft Inc
Phone: 408-970-7002 (W)

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The opinions and facts contained in this message are entirely mine and do
not reflect those of my employer or customers **

>-----Original Message----->From: Poras, Henry R. [mailto:Henry_Poras_at_dfci.harvard.edu] >Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 10:54 AM>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L>Subject: stress testing>>>We are planning on running some stress tests on a >PeopleSoft/Oracle/Solaris>system starting next week (using LoadRunner). I have never >gone through a>formalized stress test before (most of my stress is brought >about informally).>So far I am planning to gather statspack information, and >periodically get>vmstat from the OS. Is there anything else that I should >collect? Thanks for the>help.>>Henry>>-- >Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net>-- >Author: Poras, Henry R.> INET: Henry_Poras_at_dfci.harvard.edu>>Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com>San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services>--------------------------------------------------------------------->To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message>to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in>the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L>(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may>also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).>

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